No, Wealth Isn’t the Root of Social Order or Cultural Flourishing
It isn’t always ‘the economy, stupid’.
A rather troubling idea has poisoned the Western mind, dear reader: that wealth is a precondition for social order and national culture. It is not difficult to see how we allowed such an idea to burrow its way into our skulls and all but take hold of our nervous systems: money is bound up with the only value we have come to care for, which is utility; and moreover it affirms our present approach to things, thus freeing us from having to indulge the awful thought that we might have made a mistake and trashed both our own wellbeing and the planet as a result.
Some will cross their arms at this point and insist, as classical liberals, libertarians and free-market absolutists everywhere do, that ‘Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty’. And they are right, in a way. It has. But to be lifted out of a tight-knit subsistence farming community in India or China where there was no money to speak of but social cohesion, closeness to nature and a sense of the sacred only to find yourself working in a slum for peanuts is not exactly to improve on your condition. Even if this were not true, as it no doubt isn’t in many cases, the fact that wealth lifts people out of poverty does not make it a precondition of social order or cultural flourishing or even individual wellbeing.
Being lifted out of a tight-knit subsistence farming community only to find yourself working in a slum for peanuts is not exactly an improvement on your conditions.
But let us not be too absolutist (fun though it is): wealth can and has created a firm base on which order and culture can emerge and evolve. Berthold Brecht’s quotation, ‘First bread; then ethics’ neatly and memorably captures the idea that if we are broke we can hardly debate the meaning of life or the correct way to arrange an impractically large collection of vintage teacups based on the supposed mood each one evokes. In theory, more wealth amounts to more leisure, and leisure supports creative activity. On the Marxist view, with society regulating the general production – and here I quote from The German Ideology – we could ‘hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner … without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.’ (It goes without saying that the Marxist distribution of wealth requires wealth. It also goes without saying that doing lit crit in the evening is hardly everyone’s idea of a good time.)
We could add that wealth is often needed to preserve cultural heritage, which supports social order by maintaining continuity, encouraging ongoing cultural production by inspiring young artists and thinkers, and giving them a tradition in which to take part. One of the arguments against giving the Elgin (hard ‘g’) Marbles back to Greece is that the United Kingdom is richer and more stable. In other words, sod the artistic integrity of the Parthenon; we can look after your stuff better than you can. That, at any rate, is the thinking.
Wealth is often needed to preserve cultural heritage, which supports social order by maintaining continuity.
So wealth helps. But is it a precondition? I say no. Finley’s The Ancient Economy describes how Ancient Greece, particularly during the Classical period, was the birthplace of profound intellectual and cultural accomplishments despite the existence of real economic hardship – accomplishments from which, in the shape of the theatre of Aeschyclus and Aristophanes, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and the institutions of democracy and trial by jury – we still benefit today. Edo-age Japan, as Paul Varley documents in Japanese Culture, thrived at a time of isolation and widespread material poverty, producing ukiyo-e woodblock printing, Zen karesansui, the haiku of Bashō, The Tale of Genji and and lasting political stability under the Tokugawa shogunate.
And of course, in what was then a tiny town in Tuscany there emerged a string of artists whose work has not been bested in the 500 years since in any of the richest countries of the world. As Lauro Martines sets out in his Power and Imagination, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli and various forms of representative governance and expanding civic participation arose in a very odd social and political context in Florence, which nonetheless possessed limited resources, and a great deal fewer resources than any developed country has today.
Ancient Greece, particularly during the classical period, was the birthplace of profound intellectual and cultural accomplishments despite real economic hardship.
As for social order, we are boringly reminded every five minutes that our society is polarised, that people aren’t talking, that families are broken by political disagreements, that our institutions are oppressive and that our national or civilisational history is an offence to just about everyone; and even as I write this little essay there are riots exploding across my rain-battered little archipelago, which (despite chronic mismanagement) remains the sixth-biggest economy in the world. In cities across England, folks are getting kitted out in balaclavas and hoodies and heading off to set fire to their nearest branch of Shoezone. And what of the BLM protests in the U.S., or the riots that followed the killing of Nahel in the south of France? Do not let anyone tell you that without wealth, there cannot be order. Any village in the United Kingdom is safer than London.
What should we draw from all of this? Only that we should be suspicious of those who wish to reduce all political and social matters to questions of economics. We humans are far deeper and richer than that.
